Sour (Martian) Grapes

Once India launched its Mars mission, many Western journalists started criticizing the attempt. No, this was “not coming from cheap tabloids, but reputed media houses”, as Balaji Viswanathan points out.

So what is their problem? Wrong priorities, they say. Why spend on space exploration instead of addressing poverty and providing toilets, they thunder? Viswanathan counters by pointing out:
“Apparently the other countries engaging in scientific research face no poverty... India doesn’t have more toilets, not because we don’t have extra 450 crores, but because of our poor execution of things.”

Why the hypocrisy? After all, when NASA or the Europeans go to space, Western news doesn’t ever read:
“NASA begins its moon mission despite failing to manage hurricane relief”
or
“European Space Agency launches a satellite despite the inability to control religious riots in Paris and Tottenham, London”
Perhaps it is racism: when the Aussies launch, it apparently makes sense. But when the Malaysians try, they're just “prestige oriented”.

He wonders (sarcastically) what such journalists would have said if they lived at the time of Renaissance:
“Newton, Michelangelo and da Vinci are wasting time instead of building toilets. Poverty should indeed be an excuse to postpone great achievements.”

In any case, it’s OK to feel pride even when other things aren’t doing well:
“This is a landmark work for Indian scientists and I am filled with pride, just as the 1960s Americans were filled with pride as Armstrong made his stride. Sure, America had plenty of issues in 1969 – Vietnam war, civil rights, inflation, unemployment. But, those negative news could wait another day. It was time to enjoy the moon.”
And who is to say to we won’t find something groundbreaking in Mars?
“Four years ago, India helped confirm that there is water on moon – the confirmation of which has eluded global researchers for five decades.”

And space research often translates into money, directly and indirectly:
“Isro is already using the technology to help other countries put their equipment in space (for a lucrative fee, of course)… NASA had plenty of spin-offs resulting out of its space program that advanced other fields such as medicine, apparel, food and navigation.”

As Viswanathan says, “This is actually rocket science!”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Student of the Year

Image
As a toddler, my daughter loved Alia Bhatt’s songs, esp. the ones from Student of the Year . (That movie did have many good songs and well-choreographed dances). Fast forward to present day, when she is 12 yo. She rarely watches Hindi movies now, but one of the few ones she likes of late, Raja aur Rani ki Prem Kahani has, yes, Alia Bhatt.   If I had any hopes that there was anything to be read in the name of her toddler-time favorite ( Student of the Year ), they have been dashed. Our conversations come exam time are perfectly captured by this photo and its caption: In fact, the pic below captures how she and I look at her answer sheets – me intently, she with an expression of “It’s over, so why are you even looking at it?”   Of late, we pull her leg and tell her that she isn’t showing any signs of academic prowess, she’d better find a rich guy to marry. Some time later, she showed us this meme on the Internet: “Me No Study, Me No Care Me Go Marry Millionaire If He Die
Read more

The Retort of the "Luxury Person"

Image
Coming up with biting and witty retorts. It’s something we dream of, but rarely manage to pull off. Worse, the more we stew over the offending remark, the more likely we are to come up with that dream retort, as Calvin ruefully points out: During our last holiday at the Taj Resort, seeing my wife carrying towels to our poolside chairs, one of the kids there mistook her for a member of the staff and asked for a towel. When my wife narrated this to us, I did not imagine that my 8 yo daughter would come up with her own retort. But a day later, my daughter recapped the incident, an incident that didn’t even involve her in the first place , and said, “You know what I’d have told that kid who asked for the towel?”. And without waiting for an answer, she told us anyway: “I don’t work here. I too am a luxury person who is living at this resort. Go get your own towel.” We were highly amused by the phrase she had coined: “luxury person”. It certainly captures the kind of holid
Read more

Animal Senses #7: Touch and Remote Touch

Instinctively, we think touch is based on contact. Not entirely true, explains Ed Yong in Immense World – there’s a more important aspect than contact: “These incredible feats are possible through movement. If you rest a fingertip upon a surface, you can get only a limited idea of its features. But as soon you’re allowed to move, everything changes. Hardness becomes apparent with a press. Textures resolve at a stroke.” As you run your fingers over a surface, they hit the tiny peaks and troughs and set off vibrations in the mechanoreceptors at their tips.   At the tip of its snout, the star-nosed mole has many pairs of hairless appendages. It uses them to touch things around itself. Alive or dead? Food or ignore? It does these movements at an insane speed. In the time it takes to blink our eyes, the star-nosed mole can probe, identify and swallow its food. “Light may be the fastest thing in the universe, but light sensors have their limits, and the star-nosed mole’s sense of
Read more